Otoole v. County of Orange

MARIANNE T. OTOOLE, as Trustee of the Estate of MARY BEA FRATTO, Plaintiff,v.COUNTY OF ORANGE, Defendant.

OPINION & ORDER

NELSON
S. ROMAN, United States District Judge

Plaintiff
Marianne T. O'Toole, proceeding as the bankruptcy trustee
of Mary Bea Fratto, brings this action against Fratto's
former employer, the County of Orange
("Defendant"). Plaintiff alleges that throughout
Fratto's tenure at the Orange County Correctional
Facility ("OCCF" or defendant), from November 2012
to October 2013, Defendant discriminated against Fratto based
on her sex, and, when she objected, retaliated against her,
all in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of
1964, 42 U.S.C. §2000e el seq. Defendant now
moves, pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of
Civil Procedure, to dismiss the Complaint in its entirety.
For the following reasons, Defendant's motion to dismiss
is DENIED.

Defendant
is the Orange County Correctional Facility
(“OCCF”), a unit within the Orange County
Sheriff's Office. (Complaint (“Compl.”)
¶ 7, ECF No. 1.)

Fratto,
a female corrections officer, was hired by the OCCF in
November 2012 for a probationary term of one year. (Compl.
¶¶ 7-9.) Fratto commenced her employment along with
twelve other probation officers. (Id. ¶ 8.)
Shortly after she began working at OCCF, Fratto “began
to receive much attention” from Sergeant Jeffrey Long
(“Sergeant Long”), (id. ¶ 10),
which she had reduced to friendly and helpful conduct until
she learned “that [he] had a history of making
romantic/sexual advances toward female officers.”
(Id. ¶ 11.) Soon thereafter, co-workers started
to publicly remark that Fratto “was having sexual
relations with S[ergeant] Long.” (Id. ¶
12.) For example, one officer “directly told [] Fratto
that she should stop having sex with S[ergeant] Long, ”
while others lewdly remarked, “[i]t's not who you
know, it's who you blow.” (Id.
¶¶ 13-14.) This harassment continued for about four
months. Believing “that the jail was filled with untrue
rumors that she was sleeping with S[ergeant] Long, ”
Fratto reported her concerns to Kathy Critelli, an
administrator at the OCCF; Critelli recommended Fratto file a
written complaint. (Id. ¶¶ 15-17.) Despite
fearing retaliation, Fratto filed a formal written complaint
of harassment in May 2013. (Id. ¶ 16.)

Around
the same time, Captain Jacquelyn Bennett (“Captain
Bennett”) met with Fratto to discuss the harassment
complaint. While Captain Bennett assured Fratto that the OCCF
would shield her from any retaliatory measures, Plaintiff
believes that Captain Bennett “resented [Fratto] for
her perceived relationship with S[ergeant] Long and for
[filing] a formal complaint of harassment.”
(Id. ¶¶ 18-19.) By way of example, in July
2013 Captain Bennett questioned Fratto about “allegedly
failing to properly supervise a unit of female inmates during
a particular shift.” (Id. ¶ 20.)
Specifically, Captain Bennett claimed a videotape existed
showing that Fratto “had allowed a female inmate to
nearly strike her without any repercussion.”
(Id. ¶¶ 20-21.) When Fratto tried to
explain the inmate had not tried to strike her and
“only moved her hand in a non-threatening gesture,
” Captain Bennett responded, “[a]re you lying
about this like you were lying about Sergeant Long?”
(Id. ¶¶ 22-23.) The Complaint cites this
exchange as an example of retaliation given that Fratto
“was never disciplined or written up in any manner
concerning her supervision of the female inmates.”
(Id. ¶ 24.)

Fratto
was fired in October 2013, (id. ¶ 25), when she
was told by two ranking officers “that they did not
know why” she had been terminated. (Id. ¶
26.) Fratto believes, as she alleged in her Complaint, that
she would not have been fired “had [she] been a man, or
had she not complained of gender-based harassment.”
(Id. ¶ 32.) More specifically, while the other
“male probationary officers … regularly violated
department rules, ” they were never disciplined and
even those with below average performance reviews passed
their probationary periods or were retrained. (Id.
¶¶ 8, 28-29.) Only one other member of Fratto's
class had been involuntarily terminated - a male officer -
for having falsified his pistol permit. (Id. ¶
27.)

Fratto
filed a charge of discrimination (alleging sex discrimination
and retaliation) with the EEOC in February 2014. Plaintiff
filed the instant case on March 21, 2016. (See
Compl. ¶ 7, ECF No. 1). In due course, Defendant moved
to dismissed under Rule 12(b)(6), arguing that Plaintiff
failed to state a Title VII claim. (See generally
Def.'s Mot. to Dismiss (“Def.'s Mot.”),
ECF No. 12; Def.'s Mem. in Supp. (“Def.'s
Mem.”), ECF No. 14.)

STANDARD
ON A MOTION TO DISMISS

A Rule
12(b)(6) motion tests the legal sufficiency of a complaint
and requires a court to determine whether the facts alleged
are sufficient to show that the plaintiff has a plausible
claim for relief. See Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S.
662, 679 (2009). When ruling on a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, a
court must accept the factual allegations set forth in the
complaint as true and draw all reasonable inferences in favor
of the plaintiff. See, e.g., Holmes v. Grubman, 568
F.3d 329, 335 (2d Cir. 2009). To survive such a motion,
however, the plaintiff must plead sufficient facts “to
state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.”
Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570
(2007). A claim is facially plausible “when the
plaintiff pleads factual content that allows the court to
draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable
for the misconduct alleged.” Iqbal, 556 U.S.
at 678. In assessing whether this standard has been met,
courts take “all factual allegations contained in the
complaint” as true, Twombly, 550 U.S. at 572,
and “draw all inferences in the light most favorable to
the non-moving party[], ” In re NYSE Specialists
Sec. Litig., 503 F.3d 89, 95 (2d Cir. 2007) (citation
omitted).

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;A
plaintiff must show &ldquo;more than a sheer possibility that
a defendant has acted unlawfully, &rdquo; id., and
cannot rely on mere &ldquo;labels and conclusions&rdquo; to
support a claim, Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555. If the
plaintiff's pleadings “have not nudged [his or her]
claims across the ...

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